New York state briefs

Friday

OLD FORGE – The Arts Guild of Old Forge is expanding and with that will come more programs and opportunities for the Arts Center, according to Executive Director Deborah Jones.

The expansion began in September 2006 when the Arts Guild broke ground on a new Arts Center, right across from the current facility. The total cost of the project is expected to be $9.3 million.

Earlier this week, the Arts Guild received a major boost in funding from Adirondack Bank in Utica, who provided $3 million loan for the center. The loan was awarded through Rural Development’s Community Facilities Guaranteed Loan program, which uses a government guarantee to promote private investment. USDA Rural Development guaranteed 90 percent of the loan.

The new Arts Center will be around 27,000 square feet and include an art gallery, artist studios, a 200-seat auditorium, a pre-school program, an ecology gallery and learning center, and a kitchen for catering center events.

The building will also be ‘green,’ and use a variety of innovative energy savings systems to reduce operating costs and maintenance over the life of the building. The geothermal heating and cooling in the building will be supplied using water source heat pumps that move heat from the building to the earth through a closed loop piping system.

Note disturbs school routine

HONEOYE FALLS — Faculty and staff at Honeoye Falls-Lima Middle School are adding security for March 12 after a threatening note was found in one of the school’s boys’ bathrooms earlier this week.

On Feb. 25, the school went into lockdown after the note was found at 1:55 p.m., just before dismissal. The note read, “I will shoot all of you on 3/12/08, and I mean it.”

Allison Armstrong, the district’s communications director, said the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office is helping the middle school assess the threat and create a security plan, just in case. Building staff will receive additional information on potential security measures.

As a result of finding the note, the district’s Board of Education has agreed to hire personnel to monitor the school’s main entrance. The monitors will be there throughout the school day and will in be in place for the remainder of the school year.

Emily Leonard, an eighth-grader at the middle school, which is attached to the high school but in a separate building, said she’s taking everything with a grain of salt.

“A lot of people in our school just joke about that stuff, so we knew nothing was going to happen,” she said. “Mostly, we were just annoyed we had to stay an hour and a half after school."

Sewage issue won’t delay proposed student housing

OSWEGO – In spite of a resolution passed Monday night by the Oswego Common Council, it appears that the proposed student housing project planned for Johnson Road in the Town of Oswego will continuing moving forward.

The resolution, which passed by a 5-2 majority vote on Monday night, will not allow the city of Oswego to accept anymore sewage from the town of Oswego, outside of that coming from single-family homes.

Oswego Town Supervisor Victoria Mullen said that regardless of the resolution, she is still optimistic about what the future holds for the proposed project.

“There have been talks with the DEC about alternatives that could be explored in case something like this came about, and the developers certainly have other options here ... " Mullen said.

The student housing project continues to move forward in its engineering stages. Currently, engineering firm Barton and Loguidice continues with its environmental assessment of the land that would house the project.

Although there has been no official timetable set for the project’s completion, it was noted by Mullen this past December that she hoped to see the United Development Group begin construction in the not-too-distant future. Upon completion it has been estimated that the student housing complex would house up to 700 tenants.

It's cold, but not that cold

UTICA – Though temperatures in the Utica-Rome area reached lows around -6 to -9 degrees, according to WKTV, some locations, such as Saranac Lake and Stillwater Reservoir got down to the -20s today.

But National Weather Service hydrometeorologist Brian Lovejoy said no records were broken.

“It's cold, but it's not the coldest it's ever been,” he said.

Lovejoy also said temperatures are not expected to drop any more, however, snow is on its way back into the region.

According to WKTV statistics, the low for Feb. 29 is -10 set in 1980. The lowest temperature for February is -34 set Feb. 9, 1934. The high that day was -10.

The National Weather Service has issued a snow advisory from 2 p.m. today through 9 a.m. Saturday. Snow is expected to create hazardous road conditions with 3 to 5 of accumulation possible. Anyone travelling should use caution.